State v. Fielder

Petitioner
Stephen R. Fielder, by counsel B. Craig Manford, appeals his
conviction in the Circuit Court of Berkeley County for murder
in the first degree. Respondent State of West Virginia, by
counsel Robert L. Hogan, filed a response.

This
Court has considered the parties' briefs and the record
on appeal. The facts and legal arguments are adequately
presented, and the decisional process would not be
significantly aided by oral argument. Upon consideration of
the standard of review, the Court finds no substantial
question of law and no prejudicial error. For these reasons,
a memorandum decision affirming the circuit court's order
is appropriate under Rule 21 of the Rules of Appellate
Procedure.

On
August 20, 2006, two red American Tourister suitcases were
found partially submerged in Back Creek in Berkeley County.
The larger of the two suitcases was riddled with puncture
holes and contained a dismembered human torso. The smaller
suitcase contained a human head and arms, along with two
"Gold's Gym" free weights. Three weeks later, a
third American Tourister suitcase was discovered in Back
Creek; it also contained free weights, as well as human legs
and feet. The police photographed the suitcases and their
contents. An autopsy conducted by the State Medical
Examiner's office revealed that all of the body parts
belonged to the same person. The police traced the American
Tourister luggage to Walmart, which exclusively sold that
particular type of luggage. Walmart also sold the Gold's
Gym free weights found in two of the suitcases. The
police's search of receipts from Walmart revealed only
one recent purchase of both the American Tourister luggage
and the Gold's Gym free weights; that purchase was made
on August 14, 2006. The police obtained the video footage of
the purchase and recognized the purchaser as petitioner, a
local attorney.

The
police learned that petitioner had three ex-wives. They
located the first and third ex-wives, but could not locate
the second ex-wife, Debra Fielder. Petitioner married Debra
Fielder ("Ms. Fielder") in 1993, but the couple
divorced in 2002. Following the divorce, Ms. Fielder led a
transient lifestyle, but would turn up at petitioner's
home from time to time. The police obtained dental records
for Ms. Fielder that were a match for the teeth in the
severed head.

On
September 7, 2006, the police questioned petitioner about Ms.
Fielder; petitioner told police that she had been at his home
that summer, but had left and gone to North Carolina. The
police covertly recorded the interview. Immediately
thereafter, the police executed a search warrant on
petitioner's home. There, they found a small amount of
blood splatter in the basement that was later identified as
belonging to Ms. Fielder. The police also found
petitioner's pet prairie dog in a cage. Thereafter,
petitioner was indicted for the first-degree murder of Ms.
Fielder (hereinafter, the "victim"). It was later
determined that the victim died sometime on or around August
11, 2006.

Pretrial,
petitioner challenged the admission of the photographs of the
suitcases and their contents, and those taken during autopsy
on the ground that they were "gruesome." Petitioner
offered to stipulate at trial that the remains were those of
the victim. Further, petitioner's counsel pledged he
would not cross-examine the State's witnesses on the
identification of the remains. The State countered that it
was entitled to show how the victim's body parts were
discovered and how they appeared at that time. The circuit
court found that the State intended to use the photographs
for purposes of identification and for the manner of death
and, therefore, denied petitioner's motion in limine. The
circuit court also found that "gruesomeness is not what
it used to be. Public people are just more inured to things,
movies and otherwise, more cynical and more or less
shocked." Finally, the State agreed not to elicit the
fact that petitioner had practiced law for a three-year
period without a law license. Specifically, the State agreed
that the "door would not be opened" absent a
diminished capacity defense.[1]

At
petitioner's trial, the State called nineteen witnesses,
including the following:

Dr.
Nabila Haikal, the First Deputy Chief Medical Examiner at the
West Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, testified
that, to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, the
cause of the victim's death was from assaultive injuries,
including sharp and blunt force trauma; and the manner of
death was homicide. During the victim's autopsy, Dr.
Haikal found stab wounds, cuts, and incised wounds, as well
as signs of blunt force trauma, including bruising on the
victim's forehead and thighs, and multiple broken ribs.
Dr. Haikal noted that the anterior of the victim's neck
was missing and, therefore, she was unable to determine if
the victim had been strangled. Dr. Haikal admitted she had
difficulty determining which of the stab wounds in the
victim's torso were inflicted pre-mortem and which were
inflicted post-mortem when petitioner stabbed the suitcase
that contained the torso in an apparent effort to get the
suitcase to sink. Dr. Haikal testified that pre-mortem stab
wounds are identified by the presence of blood in tissues
along the track of the wound; however, when a body is
immersed in water for a significant period, as occurred here,
blood may leach out making it difficult to make a definitive
determination as to whether a wound was inflicted pre- or
post-mortem. Dr. Haikal emphasized that many of the stab
wounds appeared to have been made post-mortem, but at least
two stab wounds were made "very clearly before death,
" and several others were probably pre-mortem. Dr.
Haikal stated that one of two clearly pre-mortem stab wounds
went into the victim's lung; the other went into her
abdomen. The first of these two pre-mortem stab wounds was
five and a half inches deep and on the front of the torso;
the second was seven inches deep and on the back of the
torso. Dr. Haikal further testified that it would have been
difficult to match the wounds in the victim's torso to
the puncture holes on the suitcase that contained the torso,
but her recollection was that there were fewer stab holes in
the suitcase than there were stab wounds on the victim's
torso. Finally, Dr. Haikal testified that an animal likely
caused the postmortem injury found on the victim's left
ear.

On
cross-examination, Dr. Haikal admitted that some of the
bruising on the victim's body could be consistent with
accidental injury, and that she did not list the number of
stab wounds in the suitcase in her report. Petitioner's
counsel then asked, "Is it still your opinion to a
reasonable degree of medical certainty that [one of the
wounds] was pre-mortem?" Dr. Haikal replied "more
likely pre-mortem than post-mortem."

John
Carson, D.D.S., West Virginia's Chief Dental Examiner,
testified that he identified the victim through her dental
records. He also testified that an injury found on the
victim's left ear was, more likely than not, caused by
petitioner's prairie dog.[2]

Petitioner's
first ex-wife testified that her marriage with petitioner as
"fairly rocky --pretty rough times." She claimed
that, circa 1974, petitioner slapped her and knocked her to
the ground and that he attempted to punch her. She also said
that petitioner grabbed her hand or arm and squeezed it very
hard, leaving a bruise. Petitioner's third ex-wife
testified that she was married to petitioner from 2003 to
2006 and that petitioner was never threatening or violent
towards her. She also testified that petitioner suffered two
strokes in 2003, which left him with physical limitations and
problems with mental processing.

Linda
Johnson testified that she met petitioner in 1999 and
assisted him with various business affairs. She also
testified that petitioner wrote her a letter in January of
2007, following his incarceration on the first-degree murder
charge. In petitioner's letter, which the State entered
into evidence at trial, he admitted to striking the victim
and that she "was killed in the act of stealing from
[petitioner], " as follows:

[The victim] and at least [her boyfriend] but others too
decided to put me out of the house with a temporary family
protective order, and then in the week to ten days it would
take to have a hearing for me to get back into the house,
clean me out and take everything of value.

[The victim's] goal was to provoke an argument and then
have [her boyfriend] and others perhaps put me out of the
house while police were called and evidence of abuse staged.
Meth affects your judgment and gives you a continuing sense
of power and control or so I am told.

I do not think that [the victim] thought for an instant that
I would resist in anyway, certainly she never imagined that I
would actually strike her. In all of the troubles we had over
the years I had always ...

Our website includes the first part of the main text of the court's opinion.
To read the entire case, you must purchase the decision for download. With purchase,
you also receive any available docket numbers, case citations or footnotes, dissents
and concurrences that accompany the decision.
Docket numbers and/or citations allow you to research a case further or to use a case in a
legal proceeding. Footnotes (if any) include details of the court's decision. If the document contains a simple affirmation or denial without discussion,
there may not be additional text.

Buy This Entire Record For
$7.95

Download the entire decision to receive the complete text, official citation,
docket number, dissents and concurrences, and footnotes for this case.